How do blind and deaf people in the UK know that it is safe to cross at a pedestrian crossing without any animal or human intervention?

satguru

Many bleep when the light turns red, and there are also textured paving stones leading to the crossing. There are also special buttons that are designed to be easy to find manually. These are mainly the pelican crossings, at the others you will probably need the intervention you mentioned. Jul 20 06, 7:17 PM

500monkeys

If you feel underneath the actual unit with the button, there is a ridged, conical shaped bit of metal that hangs down. It turns round when it's safe to cross. Nice thought about the textured paving, I never thought of that. Jul 20 06, 7:42 PM

Baloo55th

If they are just deaf - no problem. If just blind, listen for the beeps. I've never seen the point of the textured paving - and haven't met anyone who does. It definitely only tells you there's a crossing somewhere near, but not which way. The texturing is a regular pattern of raised dots which are the same forwards and back as they are side to side. If the person trying to cross is both blind and deaf, the only thing is monkeys' twiddly thing - which I must admit not having come across. All this only applies to pelican crossings and derivatives. Basic zebras have no indication. You would just have to raise the white stick and proceed steadily. (And hope you don't meet one of Southport's white stick drivers.) Jan 27 09, 2:39 PM